ABSTRACT
Adrian Noble became artistic director in 1991, coincidentally the year Peggy Ashcroft died. He began a transformation of the RSC that was more radical than any undertaken since Hall had created the company with Ashcroft at its head. At first Noble tried to revive the monster, then to transform it into a different animal altogether. All the while the thread he held on to that linked him to the past of Hall’s RSC was that of ‘company’, but good intentions collapsed under the pressure of ill-prepared plans and the reality contradicted the rhetoric. The clash between the demands of monetarism and the desires of public service that was played out across society in the 1990s finally defeated him.
